[MUD-Dev] Killology (Was: Retention without Addiction?)

[Damion Schubert]

From: apollyon .
> Raph Koster said:
 
>> We even have our own Dr. Frederick Wertham, in the person of one
>> Col.  Grossman:
 
>> http://www.killology.com/index.htm

Col. Grossman is a crank.  Sorry.  He's found a way to cash in on
fear, and now lives off of giving interviews to 20/20.

> Much of the book details the effects of operant conditioning on
> our ability to kill another human being.  Near the end, he
> addresses the issue of video games as a tool for conditioning
> their players to more readily kill other people.  At first, the
> idea seems rather absurd, but upon closer examination, he's really
> addressing a very specific segment of the video game market: games
> in which you hold a realistically-shaped firearm, point it at the
> on-screen opponent, pull the trigger, and are rewarded with
> splattering blood and a fallen opponent.  Think Lethal Enforcers,
> Time Crisis, etc.

Perhaps if you had suggested 'Silent Scope', I could have bought
into it.  Lethal Enforcers are neither very immersive, nor are they
going to teach very good tactics, nor are their reward systems
particularly good.

Some other notes, which he disregards completely:

  1) Teenage violent crime is at a 30 year low, which is the same
  time that 'ultra-violent' video games came to fore.  While I
  wouldn't argue that video games reduce violence, it certainly
  doesn't seem to be raising it.

  2) The media reporting of video game violence is up about a
  zillion percent.  It's a hot topic right now.

  3) A 2001 surgeon general's report concluded that the strongest
  risk factors for school shootings centered around the quality of
  the child's home life and their mental stability, not their media
  exposure.

  4) Events like Columbine are more likely to be caused by social
  ostracization (i.e. bullies and the like) than any video game one
  plays.

  5) 40 year olds commit 150 murders a year.  Eleven year olds
  commit 3-4.  And yet, no one accuses the 40 year olds of playing
  too much Doom or listening to too much Marilyn Manson.

A recent book by Gerard Jones goes further, and suggests that
violent play might actually be healthy for a child's development.
His theory posits that violent play gives the child a way to express
his fantasies and frustrations with a world, one which they don't
fully understand and feel somewhat powerless.  A ludicrous theory?
Possibly, but given the actual statistical data surrounding violence
and video games, I'd give it more credence than Grossman's work.

> ...(a) handgun just like the one that Billy brought to school last
> month to show his friends, huddled around the locker
> conspiritorially?  Would he feel a little more comfortable
> carrying that around with him at school when his character online
> carries one around all the time?

If that's the case, wouldn't that kid's easy access to a firearm be
much more insane than that kid's easy access to the House of the
Dead?

> What if the input device were something other than a mouse?  What
> if it were a realistically-shaped gun?  When faced with a hostile
> opponent, he gets very comfortable with reacting instinctively by
> whipping up that gun, drawing a bead in a heartbeat, and pulling
> that trigger with positive reinforcement of splattering
> faction-specific blood and a target that drops at his feet.

"Games are bad because they improve your reflexes."  You mean, like
sports?

"Games are bad because they offer rewards for violent behavior."
You mean, like that boxing match I saw last night?

"Games are bad because they condition an automatic response to draw
a gun."  You don't draw a gun in House of the Dead.  It's always up.
You reload by shooting off screen.  You don't draw a gun in Doom.
Your gun is always up, and the best line of attack is usually to
wade into the crowd with a rocket launcher.  Games don't teach how
to handle reloading, aim variance, recoil, or a host of other
things.  Where do you learn that stuff?  At the gun range.

Look, I'm willing to grant that a player in an emotionally fragile
place can be pushed over the edge by playing Quake, and I'm also
willing to grant that the greater immersion and interaction offered
by games over other media allows us to more easily manipulate a
player's emotions.

But I think that we give our youth far too little credit.  They
know, by and large, that guns kill, and they are more capable of
seperating fantasy and reality than we seem to think that they are.

But when kids go on shooting sprees, video games never even enter my
line of questioning.  Instead, the questions I ask myself is "what
made them so angry?", "How did they get a minor arsenal", and "Why
didn't anyone listen when they tried to express their rage?"

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev